‘A’   //   Lent 4   //   3-2-08   //   Celebration of Worship, Northside Presbyterian Church

 

Scriptures    John 9:1-41

 

 

Some of you may have heard me tell the story of the organic chemistry textbook I encountered while in college. I say “encountered” that textbook rather than “engaged” it because, after graduating from high school, I studiously avoided anything remotely resembling a hard sciences laboratory.

 

The book actually belonged to my good friend Scott – an undergraduate in the biochemistry program. Like most lab sciences texts I “encountered”, this book displayed two dominant characteristics: (a) It was a dullish gray; and (b) it weighed a ton.

 

And yet, there was nothing dullish and there was something oddly light about a particular sentence found in that textbook. A sentence that was so – how should we say? – overwrought as to prompt my friend to come storming down the dorm hall to thrust it under my humanities nose.

 

The sentence described the effects of mixing two chemicals whose names are long lost to memory. I can see the words to this day: “The mixture emits an odor not unlike prolonged mammalian unwashedness.”

 

 

 

 

“What did (Jesus) do to you?” the man born blind is asked in John’s gospel today. “How did he open your eyes?” He is asked these two things – and not in a friendly way – by those who have carefully guarded his “man born blind” station, all along. Likewise, these social guardians grill his parents: “How then does (your son) now see?”

 

“They” are the Jews, as the gospel writer calls them – also not in a friendly way. Specifically, they are the Pharisees. More specifically still, I imagine – if we could challenge the gospel writer, no doubt smarting from Jewish persecution of his audience – they are a few influential Pharisee leaders.

 

The leaders of the Pharisees. The reformers of the Law. The liberal churchmen – if you will – of their day … and of course, they were all men. The ones who took great pains to apply the Law to every possible aspect of human life – decently and in order, you know. In order to make their sacred literature as accessible as possible to every Joshua and Joseph and Mary in Palestine.

 

Accessible, that is, to the lives of the common people ... as they would define those lives.

 

And now – their definitions challenged – these leaders of the Pharisees are upset. “What did (Jesus) do to you? How did he open your eyes?” Translation: If anyone has the right to give you sight – not that anyone would, or could – we are the ones.

 

For you see, the Pharisee leaders are not pastorally concerned about the man’s new vision. And, they are not prophetically concerned that the man be restored to his community, versus remaining an outcast due to his family’s “sin”. Pastorally or prophetically: They are not concerned with Jesus’ concern, of the man’s possibilities for a full life, versus a life permanently defined … defined, that is, by their carefully crafted theologies.

 

 

With their demands for an explanation of what they could never allow, and their demands of the man to refuse allegiance to the one who allowed it, the leaders of the Pharisees are scrambling for cover.

 

 

 

Whatever can be said about these Pharisee leaders and their mountain of laws, one law of life remains right and true: The greater the sense of entitlement, the more those who feel entitled hide their fears behind walls of words. Their words, or the words of those they would compel to construct these walls.

 

These walls of words can seem quite durable. There’s a five-sided building outside our nation’s capital that – aided and abetted by our executive and legislative branches – has attempted to impose global reality for quite some time with word-walls such as “collateral damage” (formerly known as civilian casualties) … “low intensity conflict” (formerly known as low intensity warfare) … and, “post traumatic stress disorder” (formerly known as “battle fatigue”, and before that as “shell shock.”)

 

Certainly, these more specific terms aim to explain more specific realities. And yet, let us always ask ourselves: When does what is generally and deeply human become lost due to the more specifically and superficially concrete?

 

“This man Jesus is a sinner! Say it!”

 

“Well … great! That’s a nice wall you’re building, Mr. Leader of the Pharisees. So what? So what if he may be a sinner? One thing I do know: I once was blind, but now I see!”

 

 

In our Moment for Mission today, we heard Brian share with us some of the exciting plans of the More Light Presbyterians national board -- especially its creative renewed attempts to delete the wall of words in our denomination's constitution best known to most of us as Amendment B. A wall systematically built and used to exclude lesbian, gay, and bisexual sisters and brothers from the world of ordained leadership in our churches.

 

In recent years, another comparably well-meaning progressive Presbyterian organization has valiantly struggled to confront this same wall of words. Note that I said confront this wall. Because it has become apparent to many – particularly in recent years – that this comparably well-meaning organization, known as Covenant Network of Presbyterians, has not remained focused on tearing down this wall of homophobic words. Instead, Covenant Network has sought to confront it by building its own wall of words – only taller – that we may see over the top of the other wall to where the Promised Land of inclusivity lies.

 

That’s an interesting tactic. And yet, though we may now see the Promised Land from the top of this kinder, gentler wall of words … is it any wonder that we who thirst for justice more than progress have yet to taste much milk and honey?

 

 

To see out from inside the man born blind who – thanks to Jesus, and not to the institutional leaders – can now say, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” I see, he is saying … because now, he's restored. He’s fully part of.

 

 

 

For once we encircle this table as the Body of Christ, we begin to embody the sovereignty of God in ways no words could ever begin to fathom.

 

For it’s around this table that we are allowed to reach out to the Jesus who has already reached out to us. A Jesus whose spirit resides as much in the mixture of this bread and this cup as it does in the mixture of spittle and dirt he applied to the eyes of the man born blind.

 

And should that be any surprise? For many of you know the story of the mysterious pilgrim who joined two of Jesus’ disciples on the road to a place called Emmaus. That mysterious pilgrim – Christ incognito – was invited by the disciples to eat with them. And in return for their hospitality, he broke bread with these disciples and he gave it to them. And it was only then that their eyes were opened. And it was only then that they recognized him.

 

What do you say to an experience like that? Do you say, “Explain it!”? Do you exclaim, “Say something!”?

 

How about, “Look!” And how about, “See!”

 

For around this table, our prolonged mammalian unwashedness – through not only our baptismal calls, but the spit and dirt of this Communion feast – is scrubbed clean in our sight.

 

And more than just that. Around this table, the dividing walls of our words – which can never be scrubbed clean of their offense – come a-tumblin’ down, as well.

 

Only around this table. Only as Christ’s body. Only in this Promised Land.

 

Soli Deo Gratia. Thanks be to God!

 

 

 

In 17 days, it will have been five years since the massacre in Iraq began.

 

What if your prayer today is enough to topple the walls of words of President Bush, and of Congress? What if your one prayerful action provides the tipping point? Or that your prayerful action, joined with others, causes these men – and a few women – to drop to their knees, to repent of their arrogance and pride … and to change?

 

If then they asked for forgiveness, would you forgive them?

 

Would you welcome them into your home for dinner?

 

Would you welcome them around this table for Communion?

 

In the words of Dorothy Day during the Vietnam War: "If I did not have faith that the works of mercy do lighten the sum total of suffering in the world, so that those who are suffering on both sides of this ghastly struggle somehow mysteriously find their pain lifted and some balm of consolation poured on their wounds, if I did not believe these things, the problem of evil would indeed be overwhelming."

 

Go out into the world in peace – to love and serve the Lord.